According to Mike Schackwitz, Principal Group Program Manager for the Outlook.com service, Microsoft will “wind down the Custom Domains product” while continuing to support existing custom email addresses “indefinitely.” The service has been in existence since 2005.

So the good news is that existing accounts will remain active. However, if you were used to setting up your iwantmyname domains using Microsoft's email hosting service, you now need a new tool in your online toolbelt. Our own Chris Hall wrote a neat article on how to get a custom email address last year, which lists several alternatives:

Zoho Mail is the only one still offering free accounts, but we all know that this might change eventually. If you're not a fan of Google, we found FastMail a great alternative and Pobox will certainly do the trick for email forwarding only.